Fagin
Julius Antoine "Fagin" Dale was the chief crime lord of "the Gutter", the desperately poor southern section of Tarsonis City, Tarsonis. He appears in the novel StarCraft Ghost: Nova. Fagin was muscular, had a shaved head that "went out of style ten years ago" and wore a full beard. He wasn't tall, but seemed to have a presence that made him seem the tallest person in the room. He had at least two large "no-necked" bodyguards, more as a status symbol than anything else. Fagin was intelligent, charismatic, a skilled crime lord and manipulator, and something of a student of human behavior. According to the telepathic November Terra, he was sane. He kept twelve people (he never bothered to name them), male and female, as sex slaves. He also never bothered to remember the names of his bodyguards. Fagin was very careful about his personal security, always keeping a well-designed gun on-hand. Behind the strong doors of his hideout (which he didn't keep a secret) was a force-field generator, controlled by a device he always wore on him. Biography Fagin used to make a living as a "pavement wrestler", which is when he started shaving his head and filed his teeth. He used to serve as a "speed loader" for a crime lord known as "Grin" (because he never smiled) but quickly made a reputation as the brains behind Grin's "muscle". Fagin replaced Grin as a local crime lord by murdering him. He eventually defeated the other crime lords and became the undisputed leader of criminal activity in "the Gutter". Afterwards he started calling himself "Fagin" after the villain in Charles Dickens' "Oliver Twist". Before the destruction of Korhal, Fagin had a contact there who could provide him with very new drugs. After the Terran Confederacy destroyed Korhal, Fagin made a donation to the Sons of Korhal simply because he was so angry. Fagin had other contacts, including even among the Tarsonis Police Force (whom he frequently bribed) and the Confederate military. A Secret Acquisition Fagin's life changed when he received a report of a tall young woman appearing in the Gutter who attacked two of his hoodlums with what seemed to be telekinetic powers. He pretended not to believe she could use telekinesis. He ordered Markus Ralian to abduct her while he pondered what to do about this development. When he was ready, he had her brought in front of him. She identified herself as Nova. He immediately noticed that she was richly dressed, causing him to believe she might be worth a good ransom. However, she told him that her family was dead and so she couldn't be ransomed. He told her that she would become his personal intelligence agent and assassin, but she said she'd rather die first - she had undergone a horrible event and was suffering from mental trauma. He couldn't threaten her with death, so instead he ordered her out. He believed she could be starved into submission (so he ordered the shopkeepers not to allow her any food). Before leaving, she taunted him by telling him that his twelve lovers didn't love him (but were afraid) and that one of his trusted lieutenants would kill him, but even that didn't frighten Fagin. He believed that would happen since that's how he came to power in the first place. Five days later, he discovered startling information about her - one of her family members (her sister, Clara Terra) was alive. Unfortunately, the Terras were one of the Confederate Old Families, a powerful aristrocratic group. Attempting to ransom Nova would be suicidal, as the Old Families would simply destroy him rather than negotiate. He also noticed her stealing food. He hired his top hitman, the drug-addled "Pitcher" to kill her, but Nova simply destroyed the Pitcher's mind. While waiting for a successful report from the Pitcher, he contacted a Supply Sergeant Morwood of the Confederate military and received a psi-screen from him in a package. The psi-screen would make him immune to Nova's telepathy. Furthermore, he arranged for an ambush of Nova, and used children as a screen of hostages. Fagin's psi-screen was manually activated and could inflict terrible pain on a telepath; between the torture and the hostages he made Nova into his slave. Madness of Ambition Six months after capturing Nova, Fagin seemed to be going crazy. One example of his madness was calling in a pair of drug dealers who were lovers for a "random audit" performed by Nova. Nova reported that they weren't ripping Fagin off and that they were lovers. Fagin replied that everyone knew that and then shot one of the drug dealers because they were thinking of making love rather than working (or so Fagin put it). Later, Markus Ralian came by and had a secret talk with Nova. He ordered the corpse of the drug dealer to be put into the alley and not be hidden. He hoped that the police would find the body and eventually catch Fagin, but Nova told him it wouldn't work. (Ralian himself believed it would't work... but he wanted it to work.) Later Fagin gave orders to his daughter, Dani. However, as she spoke on a communicator, Fagin realized that he had thought she was Sam and shot her "for pretending to be Sam". He called for Sam and asked him to bring bullets and then call Nova. When Nova arrived, she knew about the bullets, causing Fagin to fear as she could read his mind despite his psi-screen. Nova told him she overheard him telling Sam to get bullets; Fagin used the torture setting on her. Nova, after recovering from the pain, told him that she was making his position worse, not better, and that a trusted lieutenant would someday kill him. Fagin said telepaths couldn't predict the future and told her to go away. Markus Ralian learned something disturbing about the psi-screen that Fagin constantly wore - it should not be worn longer than the regulation seven hours, as wearing it longer could cause memory loss. Fagin had been wearing it for six months! Ralian decided to test the theory. He asked Fagin about their problems shipping hab from Halcyon - Fagin told him that he killed a member of the Halcyon crime organization who was "planning something" as a favor to the Halcyon organization after Nova read something incriminating from his mind. The "ungrateful" organization refused to continue to ship hab. When Fagin asked where would they get their hab from, Fagin told him to stop bothering him, they would get it from Halcyon like they always did. This confirmed to Ralian that Fagin's memory problems were extremely severe. He tried to convince Fagin to remove the device, but Fagin told him that if he did so, Nova would instantly fry his brain. Shortly thereafter, Ghost Wrangler Malcolm Kelerchian, hunting for the powerful psychic Nova, "visited" Fagin's headquarters. He identified himself as a Confederacy government agent, and asked Fagin to hand Nova over, otherwise he would unleash a Confederate Marine division known as the "Annihilators". Fagin replied with bullets, which bounced off of Kelerchian's forcefield. Unable to learn from this simple encounter, Fagin continued firing until he ran out of bullets. Nova decided the moment was right. She used her telepathic powers to force Markus Ralian to draw his gun and shoot Fagin repeatedly in the back. She had predicted Fagin would be killed by one of his lieutenants, when in fact he was killed by two (Ralian made no attempt to resist Nova's control). Almost immediately thereafter, the Annihilators charged the compound, killing many of Fagin's minions and causing the building to collapse on Markus Ralian, killing him too. Then the Zerg arrived. Fagin's organization met its doom from multiple directions. Followers As the leader of a fairly large criminal organization, Fagin has many minions who report to him. His most important minions include the following. Nova :Main article: Nova After Fagin kidnapped November Terra, he made her into his Fagin's intelligence agent and enforcer through the use of a special psi-screen that could inflict pain on telepaths. He ordered her to read the thoughts of his associates regularly, and killed anyone he perceived to be disloyal. The Pitcher The Pitcher was Fagin's chief drug tester and his best hitman. The Pitcher has an abnormally strong metabolism; any drug that makes him sick would kill someone else, which is why Fagin uses him a drug tester (if it makes the Pitcher sick, Fagin won't sell it). The Pitcher became so tolerant to drugs that only Fagin's newest drugs give him any "satisfaction". The Pitcher got his nickname from drinking a full pitcher of grain alcohol "to no effect" and killed the woman who gave him the nickname. The Pitcher's mind has been so damaged by drugs he can't even recall his own name (and always calls Fagin "the Bald Man" because he couldn't remember that, either). He walks by stomping, which was easier since "the accident". The Pitcher hated everyone except "the Bald Man" and his grandmother. The former granted him drugs so new they haven't been made illegal yet, while the latter was the only person who knew his real name, leading the Pitcher to believe that killing her might not have been a smart move. The Pitcher was such an efficient hitman that no one has escaped his grasp for years. The Pitcher's catch phrase was "brutal!" used in the way a 21st century person might say "cool!". He was covered in piercings and holo-tattoos of a large person (e.g. himself) committing acts of violence on a small person (e.g. his victims). Fagin did not have a full understanding of Nova's psychic abilities when he dispatched the Pitcher to kill Nova. The simple task of walking from the mouth of the alley she was living in to reach her was hampered by the Pitcher's constant drug use, augmented by multiple dispensers of different drug types - he literally forgot his mission halfway through, and went through fantasy sequences of how she would die. He was surprised that she could scream without a throat, until he realized he hadn't killed her yet; he was getting careless. When she read his mind and said what she saw in it, he assumed he had been speaking out loud. His plan was to literally rip off her arms and then kill her by beating her with her own arms. Nova realized he was insane (because he had suffocated a woman at the Firefly Club who asked about his tattoos) and promptly killed him using her mental powers. Markus Ralian :Main article: Markus Ralian Markus Ralian is Fagin's underboss. Morwood Morwood was a Confederate Army supply sergeant who worked at a supply depot outside Tarsonis City. His wife Dianne was a hab addict, an addiction that his salary couldn't cover. As such he turned to Fagin who kept Dianne stocked in return for Morwood sending Confederate weapons and equipment that he had had access to. It was through Morwood that Fagin obtained the psi screen which allowed him to control Nova. Tyrus Fallit Tyrus Fallit is a large man subordinate to Markus Ralian (who loves being able to lord it over the much bigger Fallit). Fallit is a cold-blooded killer; the only thing that makes him emotional is mentioning the murder of his sister. When Fagin captured Nova for the second time, he ordered Fallit to kill a child; that, along with Fagin's psi-screen, forced Nova's surrender. Wolfgang Wolfgang and his "girls" were Fagin's corpse disposal unit; Wolfgang even has the skills to disguise a murder scene as an "accident". The Tarsonis Police Force rarely investigated crimes in the Gutter, but they couldn't ignore corpses, even with all the bribes Fagin paid them. Near the end of the Terran Confederacy, Wolfgang stopped answering his "fone", something he always used to do. This suggests he was murdered, either by Fagin or at least on his orders. Minor Followers *Danni *Evan: Sold hab in the suburb of Cramville. *Francee: Sold hab in the suburb of Kitsios. *Freddie & Billie: A pair of hoollums who tried to rape Nova and ended up being psionically stunned and having a T20 pistol destroyed for their efforts. Almost always finished their sentences with their counterpart's name. *Geena: Markus Ralian's cheif lieutenant and sister. *Ian: Joined Fagin's organisation due to his parents being too poor to give him an allowance. Sold hab in the "prime territory" of O'Callaghan, despite his status not being high enough for such a thing. After a beratement session in which he was hung by his ankles and threatened with execution, Fagin let him off the hook, albeit with greatly reduced status. *Manfred: Formerly run O'Callaghan before Fagin took it from him, ending up working for the crime lord as a result. It took him weeks to realise that Ian was selling hab there and reported him to Fagin, getting himself shot as a reward. In Fagin's mind, he was either stupid or disloyal, the latter being more likely. As he was "solid and too smart", he could learn nothing and had therefore lost his use. *Sam References DeCandido, Keith R. A. StarCraft: Ghost: Nova. New York: Pocket Star Books/Simon and Schuster, November 2006. ISBN 0-7434-7134-2. Category: Terrans Category: Characters